TheSamba.com :: View topic - So many Vanagons, Westy's for sale locally

Mon Oct 07, 2024 7:58 am

I just happen to be surfing our local Craigslist of the San Francisco Bay Area and counted 15+ as being available. Is this typical for the fall when most are done camping for the season? For me, the fall (when the local kids are back in school) is our favorite time to camp.

Mon Oct 07, 2024 8:13 am

if you haven't noticed, people are really having a hard time paying for basic stuff these days.

These things are a luxury to many, so it makes sense that it would be one of the first things to get the ax when trying to trim fat from the budget.

This is kind of along the same lines as this thread:

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=203877

basically, it's a buyers market...IF you can find a buyer.

Mon Oct 07, 2024 8:20 am

Not sure I agree. Seems like the vans that are not selling are the stick shifts.
Maybe the younger buyers don't know how to shift.

Mon Oct 07, 2024 8:31 am

there's 10 here in san diego today, ranging from $5k to $54k

Mon Oct 07, 2024 8:44 am

I use Bring A Trailer as a gauge of volume of vans, prices, sold and big. It's not a big picture metric, but gives an idea. I've not seen that many Vanagons listed there in the past couple of months.

A trend I'm seeing is tin top Vanagons being bought. Spoke to multiple people at the Caffeine & Octane show yesterday that said they'd recently bought tin top Vanagons.

Mon Oct 07, 2024 9:26 am

Silverghost500 wrote: I use Bring A Trailer as a gauge of volume of vans, prices, sold and big. It's not a big picture metric, but gives an idea. I've not seen that many Vanagons listed there in the past couple of months.

A trend I'm seeing is tin top Vanagons being bought. Spoke to multiple people at the Caffeine & Octane show yesterday that said they'd recently bought tin top Vanagons.

My impression are:

BAT is for folks already in the know.

Unless the current owner bought from BAT they won't know to sell there and may not be up for the process.

Craigslist/FB is more known and usable by the average owner so may be more representative of the non-collerctor segment.

Mon Oct 07, 2024 9:45 am

I fear our beloved genre is visibly dying, unless an owner happens to live in a hotbed town of enthusiasts and shops — or is themselves an able mechanic with a stocked garage.

What we’ve personally heard probably 100 times are comments by regretful former owners in selling because of endless mechanical expenses. Some have been outwardly emotional in describing the day they sold, the happy times they had, and that they made the wrong decision in retrospect.

The difference between Then and Now is support, and respect of customer funds. While it’s understandable that many shops have closed up for aging out, what’s not understandable is the attitude of many entitled or downright marginal vendors we rely on to keep going. Inexcusable when “we” built “them,” to often no appreciation of that fact whatsoever.

So far as Skills above being slighted for his supposed politics, every region and its owners could massively benefit by having such a mechanic giving a damn in their neck of the woods.

We should all be so lucky — and I couldn’t care less about such views in light of us all driving the same rigs. Our genre has no chance without each other.

Mon Oct 07, 2024 9:51 am

Deleted by user, it answered a deleted post.

Mon Oct 07, 2024 10:00 am

skills@eurocarsplus wrote: if you haven't noticed, people are really having a hard time paying for basic stuff these days.
.
Yet, we couldn't even get a seat in two restaurants at 4pm last Saturday. This is one of the poorer cities in Massachusetts. We never had to make reservations in local places years ago.

Anyways, back on topic, I think it's pretty common for boats, campers and other summer items to hit the market in fall. I think the decision is likely made in the middle of the summer. I've seem multiple motorcycles on front lawns with for sale signs while out on bicycle rides.

Mon Oct 07, 2024 10:02 am

Think you’re right about Fall selling… though interestingly, nearly everyone knows Spring is when to sell a car.

But maybe, Haha, Fall is better for Vanagons to have eight months to work on it. :lol:

Lest we forget that much of the populus *never* go out to eat, and can barely buy groceries. So not sure restaurant seats are a fair benchmark of economic realities.

Mon Oct 07, 2024 10:04 am

cmayna wrote: I just happen to be surfing our local Craigslist of the San Francisco Bay Area and counted 15+ as being available. Is this typical for the fall when most are done camping for the season? For me, the fall (when the local kids are back in school) is our favorite time to camp.

We see this on Craigslist every year in the Vancouver BC area. I've been watching this for over 20 years and it's the same seasonal pattern.

After a summer of camping, you'll see the amount of Vanagons, Eurovans, and Bay Window Buses put up for sale double or even triple and then the ads taper off around early Dec.

Come Spring, we see the number of ads jump again and then taper off as we transition into early Summer.

Mon Oct 07, 2024 10:07 am

vanagonjr wrote: skills@eurocarsplus wrote: if you haven't noticed, people are really having a hard time paying for basic stuff these days.
.
Yet, we couldn't even get a seat in two restaurants at 4pm last Saturday. This is one of the poorer cities in Massachusetts. We never had to make reservations in local places years ago.

it's happened around here too, but because so many smaller places have closed:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/restaura...elemetry=1

so you're seeing the effect, even if you don't see the cause

Mon Oct 07, 2024 10:12 am

We really and disappointedly saw this last Fall in the Southeast.

All the local and authentic restaurants were boarded up — and at great risk of “snowflaking” as per an above post (for actually giving a damn and not being on happy pills), it was heartbreaking.

I asked dozens of locals about this over our month there, turns out mostly the corporate places survived and the Mom and Pops couldn’t. So we cooked our own greens.

Spectacular times for corporate greed thanks to the selfish idiots who helped them thrive, not so much for the dying Mom and Pops we personally supported all along.

Once every little town is littered with soulless chains and crappy, toxic “food,” it’ll be way too late — if it isn’t already.

Mon Oct 07, 2024 10:27 am

Without going into politics, I have to agree with Skills here that the economics is a deciding factor for unloading these bricks at a faster rate than say last year...

I have never seen that many Vanagons for sale in Hawai'i since late 2008, at very interesting prices too! It definitely is a buyer's market.

I foster dogs with my wife that we place ourselves to families.
The shelters are overflowing with dogs. You couldn't find a rag dog to adopt during Covid: people had more time than money.
Surrenders are through the roof, abandoned dogs, dogs that are very adoptable are not even picked up.
That's a sign of the economy, this and the increase in sales of Spam (yuk).

Mon Oct 07, 2024 10:30 am

Alika, if those shelters take donations, we’re in, just let me know.

Mon Oct 07, 2024 10:33 am

skills@eurocarsplus wrote:
basically, it's a buyers market...IF you can find a buyer.

Yup, and the market value on these has gone down as expected. Some sellers are still pricing them at covid era prices.

Mon Oct 07, 2024 10:48 am

skemems wrote: …the market value on these has gone down as expected. Some sellers are still pricing them at covid era prices.
This is a very common topic out here in the fields.

The dropping prices have everything to do with a ton of people fleeing towards full-time travel during covid.

But once most of them discovered the Instagram image was an absolute lie like most things in social media, the realities of travel set in — and they scurried back home to delivered pizza.

“Living without” is not a concept most Americans are fit to try. RVs and trailers and even Sprinters are all over the marketplace now.

Mon Oct 07, 2024 11:57 am

Anyone who thinks that there are not a large group of people out there significantly struggling is either, one of those who think it is ok to pay 60 to 70 percent taxes because they have enough money it won’t effect them, they are watching the MSM or is still wearing a mask and have locked themselves up inside because they think Covid is still killing everyone who gets it.

30-40 year old vans are not cheap to work on, (especially if you can not do the work yourself), and typically are not as reliable as modern vehicles.

In less than 30 days we will find out if things improve or worsen, and then we see either an increase or decrease in availability of these vans.

This forum has all of the above.

Mon Oct 07, 2024 12:55 pm

$1 trillion in credit card debt, all-time high
30% of car owners underwater on loans
Car repos are up 23%
3% of homeowners "seriously underwater"
Cost of living still sky-high
Cost to drive and camp still high
Cost to repair vehicles is high
Businesses going bankrupt at an alarming rate (both "mom & pop" and corporate)

All of the above and more = lousy economy out in the real, middle-class world = dump personal expenditures you don't need to get money to pay for things you do need, in addition to the seasonal norms

Mon Oct 07, 2024 3:27 pm

Moderator time:
Let's stay away from personal insults.

Also politics.

Some posts were cleaned up.